1

1. Yes, but not for all movies. Some of the scenes marked "HD" are available only in "Web HD" or 540p (actually 960x544). Although they seem to have added the 720p option to some of those lately. Both HD options are in MP4 (H.264) format. Personally I tend to prefer the lower resolution to save bandwidth, as the scenes tend to be overlong, some individual scenes are feature film length.

2. The $9.95 means €9.95 for Europeans. Considering the price this might not be a major issue.

My own observations: Performer IDs are inconsistent and sometimes missing. For instance in a recent update (Evil Anal 12 scene 4) they omit the name of the female talent (Lou Charmelle) entirely. And some performers are listed under multiple names, which is confusing.

Although there are sometimes large picture galleries they are pretty much useless as they are vievable only in-browser and not very conveniently at that.

2

Personally I would like to swap some of the sites I don't care about for some of the 21Sextreme sites that hold more interest. For instance I never have gotten the point of Nude Fight Club, so I might swap it for, say, Teach Me Fisting or Grandpas Fuck Teens... which I don't consider very extreme in the first place. Although I have not checked their updates after my old membership expired. On the whole, the 21Sextury is still the better deal.

While searching for some performers' scenes I have run across sites that don't exist. One was called "Miss Madison Parker", and I think there was another site for someone else I can't recall right now. Maybe they had plans for starting such sites, but with Madison Parker retired that would not make sense any more. And I guess the Blue Angel site is pretty much ended for quite understandable reasons.

3

I have access to it, have had it for days. It should be automatic, you probably should contact the support if it doesn't show up.

It is another of the Russian sites, you could say it is a sluttier version of Lezcuties or perhaps a lesbian version of Gapeland. I'm not yet sure what to think of it. I like the concept in principle because they lose the "innocent little teenygirl" style of Lezcuties while using many of the same models, but haven't been blown away yet.

4

Looking at the sites listed it seems that the people at 21 Sextury have quietly split their network in two, with some of the more fetish and niche sites ending up on the 21 Sextreme side.

It would seem, at least from the preview offered, that people joining 21 Sextury now will not get Teach Me Fisting, Zoliboy or Grandpas Fuck Teens, among others, because they are on the 21 Sextreme side of the fence.

5

There is one thing I'd like clarified if anyone happens to know: the review states "The so-called DVD quality may only be 640x480". When I last had a subscription to Videobox (almost exacly a year ago), the DVD resolution was 720x480, which is identical to the source if they are ripping NTSC originals. Have they downgraded it in the meantime?

Also at the time the aspect ratio of the videos was wrong due to differences in the pixel aspect ratio, and I had to resort to a little trickery to correct it by hand. Is this still the case?

I tried to contact the VB customer service about the aspect ratio issue, but there was no reply.

At the time (last spring) I also looked into American Vice as an alternative. Then their video quality was definitely poorer, and I forgot about them. Now I find that in the meantime they have switched to a different video format (H.264) and their videos are now 720x480 pixels while showing the correct aspect ratio. Technically they may indeed have surpassed the quality of Videobox as it was last year, but there are two things that make me hesitate to reach for my credit card: their selection of studios is such that I can't seem to find many titles that I absolutely have to download, and they still have those offensive and vicious editorial commentaries which make me cringe each time I survey a scene. On the other hand, Videobox has added studios that I find interesting, but I would like to have some definite information about their current video quality. And then there is the pesky issue of regional pricing.

6

I promised myself to stop writing here, as my opinions obviously were not welcome. However, this question has a simple and straightforward answer. As far as I can understand, there are basically two different packages. You get one of them when you join the main 21s network or Pix and Video or Club Sandy. This package includes P&V and CS, but not such sites as Fassinating, Horny Eurosluts, Dirty101, Lezbohoneys, Flexypussy etc. Those sites repeat scenes that have originally appeared on P&V or CS.

The other package does not include Pix and Video or Club Sandy, but does include the aforementioned sites not included in the first package (Fassinating etc...) which offer rehashed content from the two flagship sites split into different genres. This package is included when you join through any of the other sites. Simple, isn't it? I know this by having subscribed to both types of packages.

As for Zoliboy, the newest content is organized the same as any other site on the network: you can download the entire scene. Older content is still in smaller chunks, and it can not be streamed.

7

As one example, the Pix and Video scene from 2008/07/25 with the then dark brown haired Aleksa Diamond is available only in low and medium quality, "medium" being 400x226 pixels. However, I have previously downloaded this same exact scene from hornyeurosluts.com, where it was 1280x720. Maybe it is still available there in that resolution.

It would probably be more useful to contact the webmaster instead of grumbling here. In any case, I won't be writing here any more.

8

It seems that Zoliboy has not updated for 3 weeks now. I liked many of the newest scenes. Many of them are plotted vignettes. There was a lesbian scene with Blue Angel and Peaches which I thought was particularly good (if you like the pissing part - I do - or at least dont mind it). Also there are a few straight POV scenes, which do not feature anything kinky, and I thought they were rather good for that sort of thing. Zoli himself stays silent and behind the camera in most of the newer scenes. I haven't really gotten around to exploring the older stuff much (it can't be streamed).

My understanding is that Zoli is also directing the Teach Me Fisting and Grandpas Fuck Teens scenes, and maybe also the granny stuff. Does peeandblow.com feature the same content as zoliboy.com? Back when I had access to that site I formed a somewhat negative opinion of that guy, but maybe I was mistaken.

The new stuff that Blue Angel shoots for her own site has been mostly solo and g/g. I like it. There is a fair amount of fisting, which she seems to be good at. There are also some videos of her just hanging out in lingerie shops, porn sets and outdoors etc.

10

OK, then the site itself is misleading, because the preview shows all the covers of the various magazine lines from the first issue. Also Duke's review at TheBestPorn.com implies that all the magazines would be available: "The Private mag is the best section with things categorized by decade going back to the first issue in 1965. All of the site's issues can be viewed online or downloaded in full as in JPEG zip files and newer ones have PDF and JPEG options."

I just thought it would be fun to see how styles have changed over the decades. I have a few old copies of Private magazines myself, none of them older than 1980's, though.

11

What kind of resolution is the magazine archive? Comparable to print versions? From the TBP review I got the impression that the older magazines are not in PDF format, which is understandable given that they go back to 1965, but if they are scanned JPEG's, what kind of quality? Can you read the print etc.

12

Hmm... I would expect the title of the site to clue you in about the male talent. This seems to be a somewhat popular niche although this is the only site of this kind I have been a member of (as part of the network). What surprised me is how nice and tender the scenes are in many cases. This site is kind of hit and miss for me, but the "hits" are very good.

Has anyone noticed that new updates seem to come up empty (on the whole 21 Sextury network). The content is not there when the updates are posted, but may come up after a few days. Maybe they have server problems.

And the new flashy navigation is not that good. For instance, if you are browsing many pages worth of scenes and visit one of the scenes, the "back" button sends you back to the first page of the list. Or if you were browsing a certain model's scenes, you are thrown out of the scene list entirely. This is not very intuitive.

13

The thing about this site that should be seen right away is that it, along with several others in the 21 Sextury network, contains no original material, but only DVD scenes (many if not all of them from Combat Zone releases), and small still galleries to go with the scenes. This is not mentioned anywhere on the site, and neither are the original DVD titles identified, which I find a little on the shady side. I always thought of these sites as cheap bonus content, although a patient surfer with time on his hands can find good scenes there too. I believe the same exact scenes can be found on Videobox, minus the small photo galleries.

21 Sextury do produce original content in HD on many other sites, and I like the network quite a lot, but I don't think this is the site to subscribe to. It is included in the subscription anyway.

Personally I was toying with the idea of reviewing one of the 21S sites, but I don't know if the review would be very helpful. The bare facts are pretty much available already for anyone who wants to find them out, and beyond them there are only subjective biases and personal kinks.

14

Actually (even though it says 640x480 on the download button) the highest resolution is 720x480 for the newer releases . Which is exactly the same pixel resolution as their source DVDs, if they are NTSC releases. The only losses you get are from re-encoding.

Unfortunately they leave the aspect ratio wrong and the users have to fix it for themselves. That is not difficult though.

The ones with black bars at the top and the bottom are likely letterboxed already in DVD form.

15

True if the movie is supposed to be 4:3 and the pixels are 1:1. However some movies are 16:9. Now DVD resolution is always 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL), widescreen or not. My point was that it is possible and preferable to keep this resolution in the WMV file and include the pixel aspect ratio in the ASF header (in case of NTSC, 8:9 if you want the screen aspect ratio to be 4:3,32:27 if you want 16:9).

But I am done with this discussion which no one will read any more anyway.

16

OK... I just assumed you were doing the same thing I was. I had to educate myself a bit to be able to watch the VB videos with Windows Media Player (actually, on a TV screen used as a secondary display on the computer). Now I use a small program to set the parameters AspectRatioX and AspectRatioY for each of the videos I download from them. But this is boring stuff and not about your site.

It seemed to me there was a bit of a vendetta against the Czech and Hungarian Eurobabes going on in the editorial comments. I can see the rationale but not everyone can speak fluent English. Myself I have sort of warmed up to them over time. No big deal though.

17

Thanks for your reply, Reg. I know about the square and nonsquare pixels. In fact that's why your videos look right and Videobox's look a bit squashed. However, this can be corrected by telling the playing software what the correct aspect ratio should be - which I assume you are doing with the 16x9 content, with a couple of parameters in the file header. (And which VB fails to do to their videos.) Why not do this in both cases? I'm not sure how much the size reduction contributes to the overall quality, but at least it adds one interpolation step to the process.

As to the comments, some people apparently like them and I can take them or leave them. I guess the ones I happened to read were of the more negative variety.

18

Had to check this site out as it was mentioned as an alternative to Videobox in connection with the regional pricing and such.

I dislike the editorial comments. Didn't like them when Videobox had them, don't like them on American Vice. They seem overly smug and often quite vicious. (Videobox's current shoutbox system is not so hot either.)

As for video quality, based on a limited sample, Videobox seems to be better in terms of avoiding pixelation and artecacts. Neither is perfect. Videobox uses the original NTSC DVD pixel resolution of 720x480, American Vice resizes 4:3 video to 640x480. (What do they do with 16:9 videos?)

The good thing is AV lets people download a few scenes for free and also purchase individual movies/scenes as opposed to a all-you-can-eat membership. I'll certainly keep it in my bookmarks.

I don't care for the John Thompson Sexbox stuff at all but no one is forcing me to download it so I can ignore it.

19

This is somewhat bizarre. The site works as I described with Firefox (both 3.0 and 3.1 betas). Just to make sure I logged in using Opera (version 9.63) and it works with it as well. So I guess we live in different realities. Or maybe there are alternate user interfaces people are directed to based on some weird logic, as I don't see why you would make up what you claim.

Same with the aspect ratio of the videos. (What I described applies only to the newer ones with 720x480 pixels starting from some time in early 2008, the older ones are 640x480 and don't need correction - unless they are widescreen, but I don't feel inclined to try to find older widescreen videos just for testing).

20

It still seems to me that the Videobox interface is already doing what you want: start with the whole collection, pick Asian > brunette > gangbang > double penetration > blowjob > cumshots and you end up (in this example) with exactly one scene: in this case, Explosions #1, scene 6. If the tags are describing the content correctly, that will be what you want.

As for the aspect ratio: the files are encoded as 720x480 pixels which is what the source material is; however, for example Windows Media Player assumes the pixels are square although the actual aspect ratio should be 4:3 or 16:9 and the files should contain this information (for some reason this seems to work only in the Barely 18 series, which is widescfreen and shows up correctly). This is mainly an annoyance. I can use VLC media player and set the aspect ratio manually to 4:3 or 16:9 as the case may be.

21

Either I misunderstand, or the comment about not being able to compound categories is not correct. At least I can narrow the listings down in whatever view by clicking the categories on the left.

However, it could be useful to be able to also exclude categories, which is not possible in the Videobox interface or on any other site I have visited - say, if you want gangbang but not anal, if that makes sense. Or brunettes but not big boobs. etc.

Also none of the males are identified, and here the exclusion could be actually useful. You could want scenes with a certain female pornstar but without a certain male whom you do not like. Or vice versa.

There are some genres that are singularly useless, such as gonzo, which the Videobox crew uses to tag almost everything including things that are not actual gonzo, e.g. vignettes and wall-to-wall sex in general.

My biggest problem with the videos is the aspect ratio which is currently always incorrect unless you use a software that has a manual setting, but apparently no one else is bothered by that.

22

"After several months, some of the videos I've downloaded were unable to work anymore." Why wouldn't they work? They are regular WMV files without any DRM. The only reasons I can think of why they woudln't play would involve corruption of storage media, which has nothing to do with the site itself.

Also, the highest resolution is 720x480 and the second highest 480x352. How are they not different? 720x480 is identical to the original DVD. There is of course some inevitable loss of quality when the video is transcoded to WMV, but in many cases it is hardly noticeable. The only way to improve would be to use the original MPEG2 without transcoding.

There is one problem with the videos I haven't seen addressed in reviews: the aspect ratio. The picture is squashed vertically or horizontally depending on the source material, and you absolutely have to use a player that can correct this.

Also about 90s to early 2000s videos: I think the oldest videos on the site are from 1970's and the newest from the last year or so. Personally it would be fun to see more classics but they tend to suffer from horrible DVD transfers to begin with.

23

Have you tried to join lately? I joined Videobox last week, and the only option was in euros, €14.95 through TBP's link. At the current rate it is about €4.45 more per month than the dollar price. I certainly don't like paying this extra, but at least it is less extra than with the more expensive sites which I am avoiding due to this situation.

Even the main page shows the price in euros to surfers from Europe. This implies that Videobox obviously embraces fully the idea of regional pricing and might not be willing to offer the dollar prices to Europeans even if asked to.

24

I just rejoined the Videobox site after a longish absence. It is correct that the couple of videos I have looked at have been 720x480, but that makes the aspect ratio wrong (1.5 instead of 1.333...) - the image is wider than it should be. Fortunately this problem can be corrected by setting the aspect ratio manually to 4:3 in VLC player or another playing software that allows this. (But obviously the Videobox people should do something about it.)

If they have any widescreen videos the situation may be different (haven't seen any so far).

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